The biggest environmental threat: 3rd world immigration to developed nations.

[AuthorÃ¢â¬â¢s note: In July 2008, the editors of
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment invited me to submit an 800-word essay that responded to the question: Are increased attempts
to control immigration from Mexico (including
building fences and increasing militarization of
the border) likely to have a net positive, negative, or neutral effect on biodiversity in the
U.S. and Mexico? An introduction to and brief
literature review on the topic was prepared by
Lori Hidinger (2009) as background. This is the
draft of my essay that was accepted by Frontiers Associate Editor Peter Mooreside; I have
modified it by giving it a title and by expanding
by a few lines my quote from HardinÃ¢â¬â¢s essay.
The politics surrounding later rejection of this
essay by Frontiers Editor Sue Silver are detailed in Hurlbert (2011).]
L
oriÃ¢â¬â¢s question takes two complex issues Ã¢â¬â
immigration and protection of biodiversity Ã¢â¬â and tries to guide us to a focused
discussion by posing a question that considers only U.S. and Mexican biodiversity
and, implicitly, illegal immigration only Ã¢â¬Åfrom Mexico.Ã¢â¬Â
[Actually, it was never made clear whether the question
was drafted by Hidinger or Frontiers editors. S.H.]
Biodiversity in both countries would benefit
An answer must be predicated on many assumptions, but my short one is that a great reduction in illegal
immigration will have positive effects on biodiversity
in both Mexico and the U.S. Additional benefits to biodiversity will accrue to both countries if rates of legal
immigration were also cut back to moderate levels, say
100,000-300,000 per year in contrast to ca. 1,000,000 in
recent years.
The reasons are simple. A growing human population Ã¢â¬â and all that implies for wildland destruction,
resource consumption and waste generation Ã¢â¬â is the
single greatest threat to biodiversity and other environmental values. In the U.S. mean family size (Ã¢â¬Åtotal fertility rateÃ¢â¬Â) dropped to about 1.8 children per woman
more than three decades ago. If the U.S. had not allowed
greatly increased legal and illegal immigration starting
in the 1960s, we could have achieved U.S. population
stabilization by now.
As it is, continued high immigration rates and large
family sizes of predominantly poor and uneducated people from Mexico and Central America have raised mean
U.S. family size now to 2.1 children, and it continues to
increase.
For Mexico the biodiversity question is more complicated. Education and family planning programs have
been successful in getting mean family size down to
2.4 in that country, and its rate of population growth to
about 1.1 percent per year. Export to the U.S. of many
of its poorer citizens has contributed to the reduction of
both MexicoÃ¢â¬â¢s mean family size and its rate of population growth, just as it has increased these for the U.S.
Halting illegal immigration from Mexico to the
U.S. and reducing the annual quota for Mexican legal
immigrants (and those from other countries) would serve
as a wake-up call for Mexico to take stronger measures
to lower its population growth rate. Benefits to biodiversity in Mexico would follow.
Habitat and wildlife issues
along the border
No question about it, construction of border fences
to impede illegal immigration, as well as vegetationdestroying, trash-dumping behavior of the illegal immigrants themselves, causes environmental damage in
some locations to particular habitats and species. Lori
does a good job of introducing the literature on that.

Unfortunately the environmental organizations
and scientists who have raised the biggest ruckus about
damage caused by border fences have been a bit disingenuous and narrow in their focus, thus losing some
credibility with other scientists and the general public.
They have focused too exclusively on environmental
impacts of border fences, and been silent on the much
greater but spatially more diffused environmental damage resulting from illegal immigrationÃ¢â¬â¢s contribution
to U.S. population growth. Illegal immigrants and visa
overstayers just since the 1960s, for example, plus their
descendants, may now number somewhere on the order
of 30 to 60 million, i.e., 10-20 percent of the U.S. population. These additional tens of millions in our population have a collective negative impact on biodiversity
and other environmental values that is orders of magnitude greater than any impacts that will ever be caused by
border fences.
An ethical and philosophical choice
A core issue in debates about environment-population connections is whether action Ã¢â¬â for the very few
willing to actually act Ã¢â¬â should be based on a globalist
or an internationalist ethic. The distinction is discussed
at length by Beck and Kolankiewicz (2000). The internationalist ethic is that sovereign nation-states are to be
respected, that they will work together but in their own
self-interests, and that self-interests should include assisting the success of other nations. The globalist ethic
favors the Ã¢â¬Åelimination of the sovereign nation-state as
a locus of community, loyalty, economy, laws, culture
and languageÃ¢â¬Â (Beck and Kolankiewicz 2000) and large
transfers of national power and responsibilities to international bodies, such as the World Court, European
Union, United Nations, and so on.
Garrett Hardin (1989) pointed out why, pragmatically and ethically, an internationalist philosophy is
likely to be the most successful one for dealing with the
overpopulation problem. He suggested,
[N]ever globalize a problem if it can possibly
be solved locally.Ã¢â¬Â¦We will make no progress
with population problems, which are a root
cause of both hunger and poverty, until we
deglobalize them.Ã¢â¬Â¦ We are not faced with a
single global population problem but, rather,
with about 180 [now 200+] separate national
population problems. All population controls
must be applied locally; local governments
are the agents best prepared to choose local
means. Means must fit local traditions. For
one nation to attempt to impose its ethical
principles on another is to violate national
sovereignty and endanger international peace.
The only legitimate demand that nations can
make on one another is this: Ã¢â¬ÅDonÃ¢â¬â¢t try to
solve your population problem by exporting
your excess people to us.Ã¢â¬Â All nations should
take this position, and most do.
I have criticized the Ã¢â¬Åglobalist copoutÃ¢â¬Â in harder
language, making special reference to the Ecological
Society of America, Green Party, and Sierra Club (Hurlbert 2000). Such organizations take, implicitly or explicitly, the position that
overpopulation is a
global problem, and
that an individual nation with a high level
of immigration may
not or should not
reduce those levels
in its own interests.
They prefer that immigration issues be
kept out of their publications, meetings, platforms, policy statements, and political action alerts. That is why
when the U.S. Senate passed a bill (SB2611) in May
2006 that would have roughly doubled the rate of U.S.
population growth by massively increasing immigration
rates, no mainline environmental organization or scientific society opposed it or even notified their members
about it, let alone pointed out the environmentally disastrous consequences it would generate. Fortunately, the
bill was killed by wiser heads in the House of Representatives and an uprising of literally hundreds of thousands
of ordinary voters more alert than the scientific and environmental communities. Ã¢â_

Stuart H. Hurlbert is an emeritus professor of biology
at San Diego State University and is currently secretary
of Californians for Population Stabilization. Contact: shurlbert@sunstroke.sdsu.edu